Who Is Mark Zuckerberg’s New No. 2? It’s a Trick Question.

For far more than a ten years, Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg began and finished every week by assembly collectively.

The symbolism of the ritual was clear. It was supposed to sign that Mr. Zuckerberg, the main govt of Meta, and Ms. Sandberg, the main working officer, ended up in lock phase with just about every other at the leading of the corporation.

But when Ms. Sandberg, 52, claimed on Wednesday that she would stage down from Meta this drop, she crystallized an unspoken improve at the tech big: Mr. Zuckerberg no for a longer time has any apparent No. 2.

Whilst Mr. Zuckerberg named Javier Olivan, a longtime executive, to consider above Ms. Sandberg’s position when she departs, the relevance of the main operating officer function has diminished at Meta, which was formerly regarded as Fb. Mr. Zuckerberg, 38, as an alternative has four executives who have equally big tasks and who answer to and operate major choices by him.

Mr. Zuckerberg created the structural shift simply because he wished to consolidate his command over all arms of the business, three people close to him stated. While Mr. Zuckerberg has often been the undisputed boss, with a greater part of the company’s voting shares, he shared energy with Ms. Sandberg when he was a younger businessman and wanted assist increasing the company. But with extra than 18 decades of expertise underneath his belt, he needs to physical exercise all of his energy and be discovered a lot more obviously as Meta’s sole leader, the men and women said.

The four major lieutenants are Andrew Bosworth, the chief technological know-how officer Nick Clegg, the president of world-wide affairs Chris Cox, the chief products officer and Mr. Olivan, who was the head of growth, Mr. Zuckerberg mentioned in a Fb information about Ms. Sandberg’s exit on Wednesday.

Each of the four males has key tasks. Mr. Clegg is the public encounter and ambassador for Meta, though Mr. Bosworth is pushing the company into the immersive world of the so-termed metaverse. Mr. Cox oversees Meta’s loved ones of applications — Instagram, WhatsApp, Messenger and Fb — and Mr. Olivan will be in demand of analytics, infrastructure and progress.

But none of them have as substantially electric power as Ms. Sandberg utilized to, when she proficiently ran all of the company functions whilst Mr. Zuckerberg concentrated on producing Facebook’s items.

Mr. Zuckerberg alluded to the energy change on Wednesday in his Facebook submit. He mentioned he did not “plan to swap Sheryl’s position in our current structure,” incorporating that Meta “has achieved the position in which it makes feeling for our merchandise and organization groups to be extra intently built-in, rather than owning all the company and operations capabilities arranged independently from our products.”

R.A. Farrokhnia, a professor at Columbia’s Company and Engineering Universities, mentioned the change in administration composition produced feeling as Meta invested in the metaverse and moved away from the social networking design that Ms. Sandberg designed an promotion company for and championed for many years.

“Moving in this course requires a far more decentralized — and a lot more common — governance composition,” Mr. Farrokhnia reported. “You have several people coming alongside one another where the sum of the areas gets to be a great deal larger sized.”

A spokesman for Meta declined to comment and declined to supply interviews with executives.

For decades, Mr. Zuckerberg and Ms. Sandberg experienced obvious-minimize responsibilities, which personnel normally referred to as the “Sandberg side” and “Mark facet.” Ms. Sandberg ran the business, policy and legal groups with a large amount of autonomy, although Mr. Zuckerberg was liable for the engineering and solution teams.

That began transforming in 2020 following Fb dealt with scandals involving privacy, misinformation and other harmful material on the system. Mr. Zuckerberg told his teams that he was completed apologizing and needed to concentration much more time and consideration on revolutionary products that the business was planning.

Due to the fact then, Mr. Zuckerberg has assumed a lot more management about public messaging and plan choices, which Ms. Sandberg made use of to cope with. He also introduced in hires with public policy knowledge and promoted longtime executives who have been faithful to his vision.

3 executives he promoted had been Mr. Bosworth and Mr. Cox, who have been at the business for 16 decades, and Mr. Olivan, who joined just about 15 several years back. They had been amongst Mr. Zuckerberg’s earliest recruits, and have been instrumental in developing the earliest versions of Fb.

Mr. Olivan, 44, who is known internally as Javi, joined Fb as head of worldwide advancement and rose steadily by the ranks. He is not a house title but oversaw Facebook’s fast enlargement and was intently associated with keeping the company’s complex infrastructure.

Mr. Bosworth, 40, is observed as an enthusiastic and in some cases brash cheerleader for Mr. Zuckerberg’s eyesight. In January, he was promoted to be the upcoming main technological innovation officer. He oversees the digital and augmented actuality labs, which make products and solutions like the Quest digital fact headsets that are at the coronary heart of Mr. Zuckerberg’s push for the metaverse. He and Mr. Zuckerberg are also close pals who family vacation together.

Mr. Cox, 39, who grew to become chief solution officer in 2005, has often been described by workforce as the heart of the firm. He remaining Fb in March 2019 but returned in June 2020, prompting speculation that Mr. Zuckerberg may have been signaling him as a successor.

Throughout Mr. Cox’s absence, some of his teams were reassigned to report straight to Mr. Zuckerberg or other executives, claimed two senior Meta workers who have worked with Mr. Cox because his return. They said he experienced not assumed the sort of expansive position he once had with countless numbers of engineers reporting to him.

Mr. Clegg, 55, joined the enterprise in 2018 immediately after a job in British politics, including a stint as deputy primary minister. Ms. Sandberg hired him to take in excess of dealing with Facebook’s thorny political problems globally, a task that was after hers. Above time, he has grow to be a kind of de facto head of condition for the organization, dealing with globe governments and advocating for Meta at a regulatory level. In February, he was promoted to president of world affairs, reporting to Mr. Zuckerberg.

At Meta, insiders have extended speculated more than who a probable successor to Mr. Zuckerberg would be, need to he ever leave. Ms. Sandberg’s impending departure has now shortened that checklist and still left no clear responses.

“Over the decades, couple of folks other than Sheryl have emerged as a possible successor to Mark,” claimed Katie Harbath, a director of public policy at Meta who still left the company very last 12 months. “It tends to make feeling for Mark to want choices for possible successors.”

She included: “It can be dangerous to only emphasis on 1 individual.”